> a few students that are afraid to "come out" as conservative. > That's very common, if you talk to conservatives on campus. This is the kind of situation wh

> a few students that are afraid to "come out" as conservative. > That's very common, if you talk to conservatives on campus. This is the kind of situation where I feel the need is great for real data and not anecdotes. There are just too many tropes and rumors. And even if the data bears it out, it could very well be that the people who are "afraid" are responding to false information, the same as people are afraid of terrorism. > just look at what people say about conservatives in this very thread. They are a hated minority. I haven't noticed anyone expressing hate in this thread. Also, we need to avoid conflating the concept "conservative" with the ideological movement that has appropriated it. Finally, the idea of being a 'persecuted majority' is a staple of many propaganda campaigns. The Germans were told they were persecuted by the Jewish people, for example. People in the current ideological movement (we need a name for it besides "conservative") say the "MSM" persecutes them, though Fox News dominates cable news, the Wall Street Journal is the leading newspaper in the business world and one of the leaders otherwise, News Corp is very powerful in UK media, and talk radio (Rush Limbaugh, etc.) is almost all conservative - they aren't persecuted, they are the people in power. Similarly, the GOP is the dominant political party in the U.S.; the "conservatives" are the persecutors, if anything.